


The Other Side

by talefeathers



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Genre: Death, F/M, Gen, Grief, Mourning, Sensitive Topic, Spoilers, The Clearing at the End of the Path
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-30
Updated: 2011-04-30
Packaged: 2017-10-18 20:04:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/pseuds/talefeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wandering is over for Jake Chambers; he has done his duty and reached the clearing at the end of the path. He had always thought that this clearing would be a place of contentment and rest, and while this is certainly true to a degree, he learns that grief is inescapable, even in the afterworld.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Jake opened his eyes on the other side, there was a brief, terrible moment of _déjà vu_ \- _It's happening again, all of it, all over again, I'm back in the Way Station_ \- before his mind filled with a calm surety that sounded like the voice of the rose. No, there would be no more wandering, not for Jake Chambers. For the eleven-year-old boy who had seen and done too much, the eleven-year-old boy who had fought and feared and laughed and loved beyond his years, the journey was over. He had reached the clearing at the end of the path.

He slowly became aware of his surroundings. It was as if they were being created around him from scratch, and he guessed that, in a way, they probably were. He was lying on a twin-sized bed in a small white room, staring serenely through a window to his right. Sunlight poured into the room, bright, untainted sunlight of such purity as he hadn't yet seen. Then the sunlight became dappled and inconsistent as strong, green trees came into view, filling the room with the scents of spring. The room was changing, too; the stark white walls filled with a blue the color of faded denim and produced the kind of posters any kid growing up in the 1970s might hang on his wall. A desk appeared. A chair. And, eventually, a door.

Jake's heart stirred at the sight of the door, and he sat up, feet dangling over the edge of the bed. The vaguely familiar need to run to the door and burst through it to what awaited him on the other side pulsed through him, but he didn't move yet. Even though the air was clean and bright and smelled of spring, and peace settled on and around him like dust, something was missing.

It was _quiet._

Jake shifted uncomfortably at this realization, wondering why his imagination, if that was what was constructing the world around him, hadn't called up any music or any birds or even the street sounds that had been New York. Despite the pull of the door, he waited a little while longer for any noise besides the rustling of the bedsheets, besides his own breathing. He was about to give up and break the silence himself when he heard, very faintly, from the other side of the door:

" _Heeyy Juuuuuude... Don't make it baaad..._ "

Jake's eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat. His fingers curled tightly into the sheets around him, its soft but entirely believable texture forcing him to believe that this was not a dream.

" _Take a sad sooooong... and make it better..._ "

He was on his feet and through the door in seconds, knowing now why the door had been pulling him, who the door had been pulling him toward. He crashed through, almost tripping, but catching himself before he could end up sprawled in a heap on the healthy green grass. For a horrible, heart-dropping moment he saw no one. The woods around him were empty, the singer of the muffled Beatles song nowhere to be found. Jake's eyes filled with tears at this cruel joke, this bitter betrayal.

"Ho-lee _shit._ "

Jake spun around, not at all surprised that the room he'd made was gone and had been replaced with the rest of the clearing, a brilliant patch of untouched green in the middle of the dense forest. All he really saw was the tall young man with the spill of dark hair to whom that voice belonged, that voice that Jake had never thought he'd hear again, that voice that had a laugh dripping out of its every sound and syllable.

"When you asked me to wait up, you made it sound like you were gonna be a while!" crowed Eddie Dean, as healthy as Jake had ever seen him, his huge, everlasting smile dominating his face and his arms spread in welcome. "I haven't been here five minutes!"

Jake didn't respond with words - couldn't have if he'd wanted to - but instead ran headlong into Eddie's waiting embrace and hugged him as hard as he could, curling his fingers into the taller man's T-shirt and never meaning to let go. Eddie hugged Jake back with equal ferocity, laughing even as tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.

"Jesus, kid," he murmured, but the quiver in his voice negated any nonchalance Eddie might have been trying to portray. When he became aware that the boy was sobbing, Eddie tightened his hold even more and awkwardly stroked his feathery blond hair. "Hey, man. Hey," he whispered soothingly to the boy who was his little brother by all things but blood.


	2. Chapter 2

For a while they merely stood there, laughing and crying and holding each other, for while they hadn't been apart for very long at all, death often seems an insurmountable chasm. Even when Jake had known that his part in the gunslinger's tale was done, he hadn't been sure at all of seeing Eddie ever again. Jake had met death twice before, but neither time had it felt as final as what he'd felt on Turtleback Lane, and while one might think that Jake would have a better idea of what awaited in the clearing than most, the simple truth was that he hadn't been any better informed than anybody else.

After what could have been minutes or hours - if time had been strange in Mid-World then it was downright nonexistent in the clearing - Jake finally released Eddie long enough to wipe his eyes with the heels of his hands, still sniffing and hiccuping a little. Eddie placed his hands on the boy's shoulders and held him at arm's length, looking him over bemusedly.

"Lookin' good, kiddo. Y'know, aside from the waterworks." Jake gave a watery chuckle, and Eddie grinned down on him for a moment longer before turning serious. "Look, I know this is the end of the path or whatever and time probably doesn't go here like it does in Mid-World or New York, but..." Eddie eyed Jake solemnly. Jake dropped his gaze. "I haven't been gone that long, have I?" There was a pause, then Jake shook his head, his eyes never leaving his feet. "How long?"

Jake continued to stare at the ground, and for a moment Eddie thought he wasn't going to answer, but then he did; "An hour and a half? Give or take?"

Eddie's eyes widened. " _Christ._ You didn't - "

"Can you think I would do that, Eddie?" Jake asked, meeting Eddie's eyes again, and fiercely. Eddie flushed with embarrassment. Of course the kid wouldn't have offed himself; for one thing that was giving Eddie way too much credit, and all else aside, Jake probably wouldn't have ended up in the same place as Eddie if he had. He'd had a job to do, they'd _all_ had a job to do, and none of them would have left it willingly. But that wasn't all, either...

The kid couldn't have left Roland. _Especially_ not like that.

"No. I'm sorry," Eddie sighed. "How, then?"

"Saving the writer. I... pushed him out of the way." Jake winced as the pain echoed through him, his hand floating to the newly-intact ribs that had shattered shortly before his arrival here.

Eddie whistled and shook his head in awe. "You've got balls of steel, y'know that, kid?"

Jake smiled, but it was a ghostly thing. He was still remembering the snapping bones, the tearing skin, the pain, the blood...

"Hey, snap out of it," Eddie said, waving a hand before Jake's eyes. Jake blinked and re-lit his smile gratefully, the pain becoming a memory. Something about this wasn't quite right, though.

"Wait, how come you didn't know how I died? Can we not..." Jake faltered, not wanting to accept what he was about to say next. "Can we not even watch them?"

At this Eddie's own smile flickered. "Uh, well... C-c'mon to my room."

They walked a short distance to a small house which changed even as Jake looked at it, becoming what he wanted to see. He wondered what Eddie's version of it looked like, and realized that he could probably find out just as effortlessly as he was currently creating the place if he really wanted to; the house's creation was not a conscious thing, but more like the world around him drawing on his imagination and creating it _for_ him.

"Eddie, where's Henry?" Jake asked as they passed through the front door of the building, wondering why he hadn't seen Eddie's elder brother, the great sage and eminent junkie, around anywhere. Eddie's face darkened.

"Not here," he answered shortly, and Jake dropped his eyes along with the subject. Eddie surprised him then by slinging and arm over his shoulders and pulling him in for a brief side-hug. "Forget it. _You're_ my brother now."


	3. Chapter 3

The two of them found themselves in a large room littered with the kind of intentional chaos Jake thought defined Eddie just as much as his laughter-infused voice. In one corner of the room was a television that looked futuristic to Jake, but which he figured was probably a standard in Eddie's "when" of 1987. The same could probably be said of the odd machine on the floor by Eddie's bed - some sort of music player, maybe even the kind Eddie had called a "boom box."

"The first thing I turned on is this," Eddie said, switching the music player on. "Is there one in your room?"

And even though there hadn't been, Jake _remembered_ one, as if imagining one had placed it in the past as well as the present. "Yeah."

"Whenever someone from before wants to talk to you, you hear it through here," Eddie explained. Eerily, what issued from the speakers to illustrate this point was Susannah's tired voice singing "Hey Jude," a song that hadn't been written yet in her when. A song that Eddie had taught her. Eddie smiled and placed a hand on the radio. Jake broke out in gooseflesh.

"I haven't figured out a way to answer back yet," Eddie continued. "But like I said, I've been here for about three minutes. And then the TV over there - "

Eddie crossed the room to the television without turning Susannah's voice off. Jake didn't mind; once the initial eeriness of her choice of song faded from his mind, it was soothing to hear her, though grief weighed heavy in her voice. "All I've been able to do with it so far is watch memories; I can't get it to show anything else, even when I change the channel. It always just changes to a different memory."

Jake approached the television, on which a much younger Eddie Dean and a much healthier Henry Dean were currently playing one-on-one at the park. Jake bit his lip. He had an idea, but it was a weak one that he didn't really think would work. It was the first thing that had come to mind, though, so he figured that he might as well try it.

He closed his eyes and reached his mind out to Susannah. He had what Roland called "the touch," sort of a mild form of telepathy, and he tried to use it now, listening to Susannah's voice and trying to use it as a guide to her. While he called her image to his mind's eye almost perfectly, however, he could tap into no consciousness but Eddie's.

"I can't touch her," Jake said apologetically, but when he opened his eyes Eddie was smiling, his hazel eyes rimmed with tears. Jake followed his gaze to the television and was only a little surprised to see Susannah Dean kneeling before the recently-replaced earth beneath which her husband lay, tears streaming unheeded down her face, her lips moving to match the voice coming from the radio. Eddie slowly sat down on his bed (which, Jake realized with a pang, was much too big for just one person), and after a moment Jake sat down next to him, watching the two of them miss each other, really feeling the barrier between himself and the living for the first time.

"My Suze..." Eddie whispered.

They watched her silently for an indeterminate amount of time before Eddie cleared his throat and wiped his eyes.

"Try Roland," he suggested, his voice unusually rough.

"Are you sure?" Jake asked. Eddie tousled the kid's hair and nodded.

"You know I miss her, but I can only watch her cry for so long without feeling guilty," he said. Jake got the feeling that despite his grin he was only half-joking. "Besides, we owe him, and big time. And I think he's trying to talk to you, anyway."

Eddie nodded toward the radio. Jake listened and realized he was right; Susannah's voice was now going in and out in waves of static, and beneath her song Jake could hear the voice of the gunslinger. Jake closed his eyes and tried to touch Roland's mind, and the reception cleared immediately. Then it was Jake's turn to feel the tug of guilt, for he had never heard that calm, quiet voice shake so badly.

"May the forgiving glance of S'mana heal his heart. Say please. May the arms of Gan raise him from the darkness of this earth. Say please," the gunslinger's brittle voice recited, and Eddie realized what was happening only a moment before Jake did himself.

"He's _praying,_ " Eddie murmured in disbelief.

"We missed the beginning," Jake said numbly. It was strange to hear Roland so distraught, and even stranger to hear him pray, but the thing that made Jake the most uncomfortable was that it was all because of him.

"We can rewind it if you want," Eddie said just as Jake himself noticed the rewind button.

"Later," Jake replied, waving distractedly in Eddie's direction so he could hear the prayer finish out. Because as horribly as this bizarre situation twisted the boy's heart, he owed it to his surrogate father

( _No. He's your_ true _father, and you know that. Just like Eddie's your brother._ )

to listen to his prayer. To his farewell.

"May his life on this earth and the pain of his passing become as a dream to his waking soul, and let his eyes fall upon every lovely sight; let him find the friends that were lost to him, and let every one whose name he calls call his in return.

"This is Jake, who lived well, loved his own, and died as ka would have it.

"Each man owes a death. This is Jake. Give him peace."

The next thing that came through was different; it had a certain thrum about it that Jake associated with the thoughts he could pick from the surface of people's minds.

 _I cannot bear to let him go._

Jake bowed his head and Eddie put an arm around him, leaning his head down on the younger boy's head and rubbing his arm consolingly.

"Goodbye, Jake. I love you, dear."

On the screen in front of them which only Eddie was watching, Roland closed the tarp he had wrapped the boy's body in and began filling his shallow grave.

Jake squeezed his eyes shut. The radio and the television cut off immediately.

"Jake?" Eddie shook him a little. "All right, buddy?"

"No," Jake said, his voice strangely level. He was finished, he was at the end of the path, in what should be paradise, but he was not all right. Roland and Susannah were upset because of Jake and Eddie, and there was nothing Jake and Eddie could do but watch them grieve and listen to them weep. How did anyone stand it? How could anyone bear to not only be separated from those they loved, but to also have to watch helplessly as they suffered at their expense? He hated that Susannah wept and that Roland prayed. And he missed them both so, _so_ much.

Jake buried his face in Eddie's shirt, somehow crying again, somehow hurting even here in this so-called paradise. Eddie put his other arm around the boy, tightening his hold and beginning to rock him gently back and forth.

"Shh. Hey, man. Hey. I miss 'em, too." Jake felt Eddie's own tears landing in his hair and knew that Eddie understood that this wasn't just about missing the others. Eddie understood everything, and that made it just a little bit better. "I know. I know. They're gonna be okay, though. All right? And we're gonna be okay, too. We're gonna make sure we're okay for them, and they're gonna make sure they're okay for us. Workin' together just like always, you hear me, kiddo? Just like always."

Jake nodded against Eddie's chest, already beginning to calm down. Because Eddie was right, of course. They were separated by the barrier of existence itself, but that would not stop them looking out for each other. They would never lose hope in being reunited. They would feel their grief, but they wouldn't let it steal their strength. They were ka-tet. They were one from many.

Just like always.


End file.
